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             On April 23 the Democratic Party had its convention in Charleston, tensions were already high following the Harper's Ferry raid. There was an automatic split between northern and southern delegates over the slavery issue. Southern Democrats demanded a platform including a federal slave code, which would ensure the constitutional rights of slave owners. When they were refused, fifty delegates walked out of the convention. When northern Democrat Stephen Douglas could not win a two-thirds majority, the convention would have to reconvene in six weeks at Baltimore, but a similar result followed and efforts to reunite the party were unsuccessful. Once a
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